Adukuri Jagannath Rao

In the evening we went to the lake to collect our images. There were fish and trees, boulders and algae. The algae spread like a stomach of the lake. The boatman poked sticks in its stomach and came up with leaves which would turn food for formation of new leaves on trees outside the city. Leaves grew out of leaves, then dead, now alive. They alternate between life and death, sun and shadows. Their dead bodies turn yellow and fly gently buzzing with the autumn wind.

The fish hid under the algae. The algae hid over the fish. Both fish and algae were dead in the ultimate analysis. Then they would take birth as new leaves, new fishes. Everything went fine for the boatman, for the fish woman with a basket of fish. The fish woman turned a silhouette at dusk. The fish did not turn anything. Later, they will turn to ashes in somebody’s stomach. The fish woman will turn to ashes too. Later. But the boulders in the lake remained so that cormorants could paint them with their droppings. The boatman froze near the boulder with the paddle in his hands. He too would turn to ashes. Later.

The camera wished to eat the sun in the lake. But the sun wanted to eat the clouds. Later, the camera will turn to ashes.

Adukuri Jagannath Rao lives in Hyderabad, India after retirement as a Deputy General Manager from the State Bank of India in 2009. His chief interests include photography and poetry writing. His web presence is quite large in blogs on poetry, photography and humor. His personal blog of poetry can be found at http://adukurispoetry.blogdrive.com and find him on on Kindle here (US) and here (UK)

One comment

There’s some lovely imagery here – I particularly like “cormorants could paint them with their droppings” and “the camera wished to eat the sun”. I like the way you write about the circle of life in a very original way – everything comes to an end and everything has a beginning. Very thought provoking – I can see the picture here. Thank you.